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About Ben L.

Ben L. runs pretty much everything around here. He definitely does not live in Zamboni. That isn't a place, so you probably have the wrong name. Please do more research before asking these strange questions.

My friends who have played Guild Wars 2 tell me that its combat is much more fun than World of Warcraft’s combat. Of course, most of them haven’t played World of Warcraft since the end of Burning Crusade, and I haven’t played Guild Wars 2.

Today, I was on my shaman with my guild’s leader. We queued for a random Pandaria dungeon and got a group relatively quickly because I’m a healer. The dungeon was Mogu’shan Palace, one of the two mid-level dungeons in the newest expansion pack.

The tank clearly wasn’t playing the same game I was. Just as we entered the dungeon, the tank ran into the middle of the enemy-filled room and every single one of them ran after him. Here’s where the story deviates from the norm: The tank didn’t die.

The tank — sorry, I don’t remember his name, only that he was a warrior and that he was awesome — continued to run around the room, dodging every attack the enemies threw at him. That’s the Guild Wars 2 meaning of dodge, not the World of Warcraft definition, which is closer to “dice roll”.

The tank was able to hold “aggro” on all the enemies while avoiding the damage. The job of tanks is usually to make sure nobody else is being attacked by the enemies. This tank went one step further – he wasn’t being attacked by the enemies either!

The facilities are available in World of Warcraft to do Guild Wars 2-style dodging, and I’m sure there are many other parallels between MMORPGs that are simply not bragged about enough to be known as part of their gameplay. Continue reading →